A proposal for a new tax on landlords who leave shops empty for extended periods has been slammed by the NSW small business commissioner.
But the current small business commissioner said it would be “a little dangerous” to recycle arguments from three years ago, given the seismic shift in retail behaviour caused by COVID-19 and the turbocharging of online shopping.“I would exercise real caution in these sorts of proposals,” he said. “
Lamont, a former executive director of Business NSW and ex-head of the Illawarra Chamber of Commerce, said communities were quite right to be cranky about decaying high streets if shops were sitting empty while landlords waited for development approval.He said the solution was to hasten that process, and approve more residential development above and nearby shopping strip. This had occurred with some success in central Wollongong, he added.
The Small Business Commission also encourages councils to activate main streets through pop-up shops, temporary arts and culture installations, co-working spaces, multi-occupancies and longer trading hours. The pop-ups she helps typically ask to “lease” a shop for about six weeks, sometimes longer, usually at reduced rent – but sometimes at full price.Credit:“I’ve never gone to an agent and said, ‘I want this for nothing’,” Treanor says. But she found most landlords aren’t interested in pop-ups. “They name the amount of money and you just go, ‘That’s insane’. The agents seem to get it ... but then they just get hit with a brick wall from the owners.
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